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Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Advocates Philosophical In Campaign’s Final Days

Advocates Philosophical In Campaign’s Final Days By JACQUELINE FOX Staff Reporter Paula Boland was a 30-ish real estate agent when she and a few sympathetic San Fernando Valley residents started talking seriously about forming a new city in the late 1970s. Just as reports show today, the Valley back then was said to be paying twice as much as it was receiving from the city. Boland and others were furious. Flash forward almost three decades and Boland and many of her same cohorts are preparing for what they thought might never come: an historic Nov. 5 vote on independence. Boland and cityhood supporters say they are proud to have come so far and, win or lose, Nov. 6 will be a new day for the Valley because the issues raised in this campaign will not go away. “It’s been a long haul,” said Boland, one of 12 candidates vying for a seat in the new Valley city’s Third Council District. “It’s a dream come true. I’ve been working to get this on the ballot for 30 years.” As a member of the state Assembly from 1990 to 1996, Boland introduced a measure that although it never got enough votes to pass paved the way for a state-financed study on Valley cityhood and the subsequent decision to put Measure F, the initiative for Valley secession, on the ballot. For Boland, the other 110 candidates for Valley office and Measure F campaign leaders, voter turnout will be key. Despite polls over the last few weeks showing support slipping in the Valley and citywide, she and other supporters are hoping traditionally apathetic voters will recognize this election as an opportunity to make history. “The voters of the Valley have their democracy back with this measure on the ballot,” said Boland. “That’s historic in itself. I just hope that people will realize that and say, ‘You know what? I’m going out there and I’m going to vote for this.”‘ And if they don’t? “I’ll run for (L.A.) City Council for the 12th District and I’ll go there to do what I would have done here,” said Boland. Would she support another cityhood drive in 2004? “Absolutely,” said Boland. “Without a doubt. I don’t know that anyone will attempt to do it with this mayor (James Hahn) in office, but I think he’s a short-term mayor. It’s OK to oppose it, but it’s the manner in which he’s approached it that concerns everyone now.” In 1996, Richard Close, a Santa Monica-based attorney and president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association, helped launch a group called Valley Voters Organized Toward Empowerment, or Valley VOTE. Close and the group led the effort to collect the signatures needed for a feasibility study on cityhood. The Local Agency Formation Commission used the study as a blueprint for its own report and subsequent vote to put secession on the ballot. Close said he’s so convinced voters will approve Measure F that he won’t even contemplate whether he’ll support another try. “There won’t be a need to do it again, number one,” said Close. “Number two, I have spent six and half years at this, it’s something you do once. Luckily, we won’t need to do it again.” “When this started, it was an impossible task,” said Close. “There were so many hurdles that the chances of it ever being on the ballot were one in a million. But the process has shown that if there’s a will, there’s a way, and we’ve accomplished that.” Although publicly he took a “neutral” stand on secession as LAFCO studied the proposal and put a ballot initiative together, perhaps no one took more heat than Larry J. Calemine, the board’s executive officer. As referee during the often-contentious hours-long LAFCO hearings, Calemine was consistently in the position of having to defend the panel’s neutrality while many both opposed to and in favor of secession believed otherwise. He was grilled by the media when it was revealed he had moonlighted as a consultant for a couple of Valley-based developers. Calemine’s ties to projects in the Valley, the reports suggested, pointed to a possible conflict of interest and he subsequently agreed to consult LAFCO board members before taking on additional clients. To this day, the city contends that LAFCO’s report fails to paint an accurate picture of what a new city’s financial health would be like in the days following incorporation. Calemine disagrees, saying, “Our report is based upon the numbers the city gave us, so how can they question them?” “In hindsight, there’s nothing we could have done differently,” said Calemine. “We have the government code that lays out the blueprint for how we came up with our report and I’m very proud of all the work produced by all of our consultants. We had a tough role to play. We did play the role of the honest broker and I think we did it well.” Flying well below the radar but very much at the axis of the cityhood movement are Galpin Motors owner Bert Boeckmann and attorney and Economic Alliance of the San Fernando Valley chairman David Fleming. The pair is said to have bankrolled the Valley VOTE study and contributed heavily to the Measure F campaign. Yet throughout much of the last two years, both, particularly Boeckmann, have kept their cards close to the vest, declining in most instances to divulge what they’ve given or plan to give, foregoing opportunities to take public stands on the issue. Neither returned calls for this story. Even some in the pro-breakup camp have suggested that, had the two been more visible early on, momentum for the Measure F campaign would not have waned so significantly in its final days. What’s more, a higher profile by the two could very well have prompted more of the Valley’s business leaders to pump cash into the Measure F campaign, which has been struggling to operate on a budget of roughly $750,000, compared to Hahn’s nearly $4 million. The campaign has also provoked criticism from what was expected to be some of its biggest supporters: the candidates themselves. Over the last few weeks, several candidates for Valley office have formed their own pro-break-up factions, stumping for city office in one coffee shop, calling for unity on Measure F in another. “There’s absolutely no question that getting higher profile much sooner would have been beneficial,” said Bob Scott, secession supporter and a member of VICA’s board of directors. “Had we had more resources, perhaps we would have that now,” said Scott. “But many people don’t realize that much of our resources went to pay for the study by LAFCO. They were devoted to that effort and level of expertise.” Richard Katz, co-founder of the Valley Independence Committee, is known across the state as a bulldog when it comes to drumming up cash for a political campaign. He, too, agrees that more money would have helped, but he also recites the mantra that this is not a checkbook campaign. “I’m very proud of the members of Valley VOTE,” said Katz. “This is an organization that took on every special interest group in the city, was outspent 12 to one and is still in the fight. In all my time in politics, I’ve never seen a grassroots effort like this and it’s been a privilege to be a part of it.” Katz said he has no interest in getting involved in a new city government, but he intends to fight threats recently made by Hahn to seek legislation to block a future secession movements, should this one fail. “If it passes, I’m going to try to rebuild my consulting business,” said Katz. “I’m sure there will be some way I can help out with the formation of a new government, but I’m going to leave it up to the people who get elected. “If it fails? Hard to say. I do find, at its core, the mayor’s notion of blocking any future effort at cityhood extremely offensive. That’s the most fundamental violation of our democratic rights. I’m sorry if it’s been inconvenient for him.”

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